In line with financial market expectations, the Bank of Canada announced, on March 4, it was lowering its trend-setting overnight lending rate by 50 basis points from 1.75% to 1.25%. This was the first change in the overnight lending rate since October 2018. This follows a day after the U.S. Federal Reserve cut the Federal…
Category: CREA News
Changes to the mortgage stress test
Ottawa, ON, February 18, 2020 – Earlier today, Minister of Finance Bill Morneau announced changes to the mortgage stress test. The new benchmark rate used to determine the minimum qualifying rate for insured mortgages, coming into effect on April 6, 2020, will be the weekly median 5-year fixed insured mortgage rate from mortgage insurance applications,…
Canadian home sales down in January
Ottawa, ON, February 14, 2020 – Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show national home sales declined between December 2019 and January 2020. Highlights: National home sales fell by 2.9% on a month-over-month (m-o-m) basis in January. Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 11.5% year-over-year (y-o-y). The number of newly…
CREA’s Chief Economist, Gregory Klump, retires after 28 years
Ottawa, ON, February 11, 2020 – Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist, has retired from The Canadian Real Estate Association after 28 years. Klump joined CREA in 1992, serving as staff economist for the Association. Promoted to Chief Economist in 2005, he grew CREA’s economic and data team into an authoritative source of Canadian real estate data…
Canadian home sales inch lower in December
Ottawa, ON, January 15, 2020 – Statistics released today by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) show national home sales eased between November and December 2019. Highlights: National home sales declined by 0.9% on a month-over-month (m-o-m) basis in December. Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 22.7% year-over-year (y-o-y). The number of newly listed…